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Main description: For 1,400 years, two colossal figures of the Buddha overlooked the fertile Bamiyan Valley on the Silk Road in Afghanistan. Witness to a melting pot of passing monks, merchants, and armies, the Buddhas embodied the intersection of East and West, and their destruction by the Taliban in 2001 provoked international outrage. Llewelyn Morgan excavates the layers of meaning these vanished wonders hold for a fractured Afghanistan. Carved in the sixth and seventh centuries, the Buddhas represented a confluence of religious and artistic traditions from India, China, Central Asia, and Iran, and even an echo of Greek influence brought by Alexander the Great's armies. By the time Genghi...
Ovid, wittiest of ancient poets, has been an influential model for writers and artists throughout the ages. Llewelyn Morgan introduces the poet and his works, describing each of his poems in turn, setting them in their social and literary context, and considering the twist of events that led to the exile of Rome's most celebrated artist.
An accessible account of some of the most common metres in Roman poetry, explaining how the poets can exploit them to support, supplement, or drive the meaning of the poems they carry. The study brings new insight to a range of poems, from the works of Catullus and Horace to those of Martial, Statius, and Lucilius.
At the time of this book's first publication in 1999, orthodoxy interpreted the Georgics as a statement of profound ambivalence towards Octavian and his claim to be Rome's saviour after the catastrophe of the civil wars. This book takes issue with the model of the subtly subversive poet. It argues that in the turbulent political circumstances which obtained at the time of the poem's composition, Virgil's preoccupation with violent conflict has a highly optimistic import. Octavian's brutal conduct in the civil wars is subjected to a searching analysis, but is ultimately vindicated, refigured as a paradoxically constructive violence analogous to blood sacrifice or Romulus' fratricide of Remus. The vindication of Octavian also has strictly literary implications for Virgil. The close of the poem sees Virgil asserting his mastery of the Homeric mode of poetry and the providential world-view it was thought to embody.
"How Green Was My Valley" is Richard Llewellyn's bestselling -- and timeless -- classic and the basis of a beloved film. As Huw Morgan is about to leave home forever, he reminisces about the golden days of his youth when South Wales still prospered, when coal dust had not yet blackened the valley. Drawn simply and lovingly, with a crisp Welsh humor, Llewellyn's characters fight, love, laugh and cry, creating an indelible portrait of a people.
A complete treatment of Aeneid XI, with a thorough introduction to key characters, context, and metre, and a detailed line-by-line commentary which will aid readers' understanding of Virgil's language and syntax. Indispensable for students and instructors reading this important book, which includes the funeral of Pallas and the death of Camilla.
Heroism has long been recognised by readers and critics of Roman epic as a central theme of the genre from Virgil and Ovid to Lucan and Statius. However the crucial role female characters play in the constitution and negotiation of the heroism on display in epic has received scant attention in the critical literature. This study represents an attempt to restore female characters to visibility in Roman epic and to examine the discursive operations that effect their marginalisation within both the genre and the critical tradition it has given rise to. The five chapters can be read either as self-contained essays or as a cumulative exploration of the gender dynamics of the Roman epic tradition. The issues addressed are of interest not just to classicists but also to students of gender studies.
King, warrior, and lover Brian Boru was stronger, braver, and wiser than all other men-the greatest king Ireland has ever known. Out of the mists of the country's most violent age, he merged to lead his people to the peak of their golden era. His women were as remarkable as his adventures: Fiona, the druidess with mystical powers; Deirdre, beautiful victim of a Norse invader's brutal lust; Gormlaith, six-foot, read-haired goddess of sensuality. Set against the barbaric splendors of the tenth century, Lion of Ireland is a story rich in truth and legend-in which friends become deadly enemies, bedrooms turn into battlefields, and dreams of glory are finally fulfilled. Morgan Llywelyn has written one of the greatest novels of Irish history. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.
This title features a collection of 14 papers in which contributors use diverging critical methods on a selection of extracts from Vergil's epic, with the examination of political references in the work being prominent, as well as the question of the Aeneid's central meaning. Contents include: Vergil announcing the Aeneid. On Geo. 3.1-48 (Egil Kraggerud); The Peopling of the Underworld (Anton Powell); Vergil as a Republican (Eckard Lefevre); The Sword-Belt of Pallas: Moral Symbolism and Political Ideology (Stephen Harrison); The Isolation of Turnus (Richard F. Thomas) and The End and the Meaning (David West)
Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring Horace was one of the greatest poets during the reign of Augustus and is seen as a mark of cultural sophistication since this time. This Very Short Introduction examines how Horace's poetry has exerted enormous influence but argues that it is best understood within the traditions of ancient literature. Llewellyn Morgan guides the reader through the dizzying vagaries of Horace's biography, which reflects the political and social instability of the period. His poetry, and the life he artfully constructs and presents to us in it, engages both with the greatest crisis that Rome had ever faced, and its resolution by the first Emperor. Horace i...